Masters Of Noir Vol Iii Part 3

"Well?" the first one said.

"Dames," Phil grinned. "Says she knows from nothing. Weber's gonna be awfully disappointed." He waved his hand. "I'm goin' back to the precinct. So long, guys."

They said, "So long," and resumed their gabbing.

Phil rounded the corner. There was a cab at the hack stand. He climbed into the back.

"What's up, officer ?" the hackie grinned. "Lost your prowl car?"

"Don't be a wise guy." He gave him the address and settled back into a contented silence, thinking about the money.

It was dusk by the time he reached the neighborhood. He got off some four blocks from the tenement, and walked the rest of the distance. Some of the kids on the block hooted at him because of the uniform, and he grinned.

He went up the stairs feeling good. When he pushed open the door, Davy shot him once in the stomach. Phil didn't have time to make him realize the mistake he was making before the second bullet struck him in the center of his forehead.

ATTACK by ED McBAIN writing as HUNT COLLINS

I stood in the open door of the cabana, the sullen swish of the waves on the beach behind me. The moonlight filtered in through the louvred windows, throwing long, grasping bars on the floor and on the bed. I stared at the bed, and for a second I thought it was the moonlight playing tricks with my eyes.

She lay there like a crooked stick, her long blond hair fanned out on the pillow behind her. I recognized the hair, and that was all. The rest of her was a broken travesty of Eileen, not the Eileen I'd left ten minutes ago. Ten minutes. A short time. Barely time enough to pull the speedboat up onto the beach into the protection of the cove. Just time enough to do that and then hurry back to the cabana.

Just time enough for a murder.

I didn't look at her again. I walked straight past the bed, stopping beside the dresser. I moved quickly, like a man in a dream, my body performing actions while my mind raced far ahead. The .38 was in the top drawer where I'd left it. I took it out now and felt the strong feel of the Walnut grip in my palm. Then I left the cabana.

He'd left a clear track in the wet sand. His footprints were large, and they ploughed deep into the sand. I tried to picture him as I followed the prints. A big guy. Muscular, maybe. Wild-eyed. Crazy enough to have beaten Eileen's face into ...

I felt my fingers tighten around the grip of the gun. A fresh breeze was blowing off the ocean, and it played with my hair, flirted with the back of my neck. My feet whispered in the sand as I followed the tracks. Far off, down near the shelter of the rocks, I saw the red and white speedboat bobbing gently on the swells, her bow up on the sand, her stern squatting in the water.

I looked down at the footprints, suddenly realizing where they were heading. The sweat broke out on my forehead in a fine, gritty film. The speedboat!

I saw him then.

The moon suddenly popped from behind a cloud, spilling onto the beach like molten silver, spreading over the silent dunes, catching the man in a noose of glittering moonlight.

He was as big as I thought he'd be. He wore white flannels that flapped in the wind as he ran heavily up the beach. He almost looked comical, a big balloon of a man with his clothes flapping around him like a circus clown's. He looked funny except for the glint of gun-metal in his right hand.

Except for that, and the fact that it wasn't funny at all. None of it. Not one bit of it.

He turned abruptly, glanced nervously at the water, and then looked back at me. I stopped dead. The wind carried a fine spray over the sand, slapped it against my face. I tasted salt on my lips and squinted across the beach, waiting.

"Go back!" he shouted.

His voice was strange, or maybe it was just the wind that lifted it and carried it to me in a rush. It was thick and rasping, and somehow raw.

"I'm coming after you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" I called. The wind lifted my voice, drowned it beneath the greater roar of the waves striking the long finger of sand.

"No!" he shouted. "Go away."

He turned and started running up the beach again, heading for the speedboat at the water's edge. I stood where I was, crossing my left arm in front of my chest, resting my gun hand on it and taking careful aim. I pressed the safety catch, and then I squeezed the trigger. An orange lance of flame licked out at the darkness. The explosion was loud in my ears, and I smelled the stench of cordite, heard the slug as it whistled across the beach. A little burst of sand ploughed up about two feet away from his heels. He dropped to the sand and whirled, the gun glinting in the light of the moon.

I saw a sudden streak of fire, and then I heard the loud bellow as the gun thundered in his fist. I dropped down, my cheek against the cold moistness. I thought fleetingly of Eileen, of the warmth of her, the way I had drowned myself in the softness of her mouth. The thought sent a hard knot to my stomach, and I got to my knees and began crawling forward.

I heard a faint sc.r.a.ping, and then the sound of an engine coughing into life. The man laughed shrilly as I jumped to my feet and started running toward the speedboat. I heard the motor catch and then hum as he pulled the throttle wide. I had crossed the beach now, and I plunged into the icy water, the waves springing up around my knees in a numbing embrace. I leaped forward, the gun in the waistband of my trousers, both hands clawing for the stern of the boat. The boat seemed to fight me. It pulled away in a sudden spurt of energy, tearing skin from the palms of my hands. I reached out again, getting a good grip this time, pulling myself over the fantail as the boat headed out from the sh.o.r.e, moving at an oblique angle toward the breakwater.

I dropped down into the stern-sheets and reached for the .38 at my waist.

"No," his voice said.

I looked up. He was holding a .32 on me, a small gun in a fat fist. He held the fist steady, his fat forefinger barely squeezing into the trigger guard. The moon came out then, slipping from behind the cloud, lighting his face. He had practically no chin. His face seemed to end with flabby lips that were tilted now in a vacuous smile. Above his lips, his nose sat like a steel rivet, compact, hard.

I looked at his eyes, then, and they gleamed dully in the moonlight, the pupils wide and staring. A shudder ran down my spine like a drop of ice water. I looked down at the gun again, and then up to his eyes. He was hopped to his hairline. That crazy little light danced in his eyes, the dream-light, the gleam that spelled drug addict. He was snow blind, and I could see the puncture marks on the layers of fat that hung from his arms now.

He kept smiling, his mind toying with a half-remembered idea, his eyes staring at me with a false look of concentration.

"What now?" I asked. He was half-turned away from me, one huge paw clutching the wheel of the boat.

"Don't talk," he said. He said it quickly, as if I'd stepped on a dream he was having.

"Why'd you kill her, you lousy b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"Her? Kill? Oh, yes ... yes ... " He kept smiling, and I wanted to reach out and wrap my fingers around the folded fat on his throat.

"I saw her through the window," he said. "I was walking by and I saw her through the window." His eyebrows lifted slightly, and he grinned, as if he were sharing an obscene joke with me. "She was undressing. She took off her clothes and hung them on the chair, and I watched her and ... "

"Shut up!" I said. In a minute, I was going to jump him and tear out his throat. One minute. One min....

"She was nice. A piece, you know? She was standing there without a st.i.tch, and that's when I went in. Man, she was nice. I grabbed her, and I began feeling her and ... "

"Shut up!" I screamed. "You lousy filthy b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" My fingers itched, and I wanted to pound my fists into his face. I took a step forward, and the gun came up, leveling on my chest.

I looked at the gun, and then I looked out over the bow of the boat, saw the rocks ahead. I backed away, not saying anything. I s.h.i.+fted my eyes back to his face, and they didn't change position as he went on speaking.

"She fought me. You dig that? She fought me!" He acted surprised, and I thought of Eileen under his clutching fingers and the hate boiled up inside me. The bow sliced through the waves, heading toward the rocks on the breakwater. He didn't turn around. He kept looking at me and smiling, the gun pointed at my chest.

We hit the rocks with a splintering crash, and my gun was out of the waistband almost before we struck. He screamed and tried to turn the wheel, and then he remembered he had a pa.s.senger aboard. He whirled rapidly as the boat tossed to starboard, the .32 coming up automatically, the crazy light still in his eyes. The smile had vanished from his face now, and his lips were drawn tight across his teeth. I let him bring the .32 all the way up.

I fired then, and the gun flew out of his hand as the bullet struck it. I saw bone splinters pierce his skin, saw the blood suddenly appear in the palm of his hand like a squashed tomato.

I was breathing hard. I took a step closer to him, and he backed up against the wheel, terror in his eyes. "All right," I said. "All right."

I fired again, right at his face. He brought his hands up an instant after the bullet smashed the bridge of his nose. I kept saying, "All right, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, all right," and I kept yanking on the trigger, the .38 bucking in my hand, the blood bursting out of his eyes, spilling from his mouth. I kept firing until the gun was empty, and his face was a wet sponge that splashed against the deck as he toppled forward.

He was lying in the bottom of the boat when I left him, his white flannels dripping with red. I walked back on top of the breakwater, finally reaching the beach, and padding across the wet sand to the cabana.

She lay on the bed while I packed. She lay very still.

I put the .38 back into its holster, and then I took my police s.h.i.+eld from the drawer and shoved it into the suitcase beside the gun. The boys would be surprised to see me back so soon. I was supposed to have two weeks. They'd be surprised.

I didn't bother taking any of my things out of the drawer. I just snapped the lid of the suitcase shut and looked at the writing scrawled across the top.

Just Married, it said. it said.

I stared at it until it began to blur. I looked over at Eileen just once more, and then I left the cabana.

SIX FINGERS by HAL ELLSON

"Which one?"

"That one on the right, the blonde."

Six Fingers had just lit a cigarette. He threw it away and stared, eyes thoughtful, mouth slightly open.

"Like her?" said Joey, nudging with his elbow.

"She's pretty," Six Fingers admitted. "But there's lots of pretty ones."

"Yeah, but ... " Joey leaned toward his friend and his voice dropped as he told what he knew. It was a legend that had traveled the length and breath of the neighborhood.

"That's true?" Six Fingers asked. There was doubt in his voice.

"Like to meet her?" Joey asked. "I know her good."

"What for?" said Six Fingers.

"What for? Are you dumb, or what?"

"Well, I don't know if I like her."

"What's that got to do with it?" Joey looked at Six Fingers as if he thought him mad.

"I got to like a girl, that's all."

"You're sad, that's all I got to say. You don't know which way the wind is blowing," said Joey, then suddenly he saw through his friend; at least he thought he did. "Know what I think?" he said. "You don't know what it's all about."

"Well, I got to like them," Six Fingers explained awkwardly.

"That don't make sense," Joey answered, and for him it didn't.

"Well, I don't like girls."

Joey squinted at Six Fingers. He was small for his age, thin, with sharp eyes and a weasel face, smart in the ways of his own world, quicker-thinking than Six Fingers.

"Aw, you're nuts. You better go home to your mother."

Six Fingers ignored these remarks and lit another cigarette.

Later, he lay in his room. Night had fallen; the dark blue of the summer sky seemed to s.h.i.+mmer in the room. Six Fingers' mother called him and he heard but refused to answer. Finally she opened the door and said, "Are you going to eat, or do I have to throw your supper in the garbage pail?"

"Throw it in the garbage pail," he answered, and the door slammed. He was glad to be alone again with his thoughts, wanting to lie there, but the street sounds stabbed like pins and a restlessness had entered his body, a kind he'd never known before.

Finally he got up. It was darker now, the house quiet. His mother sat in the living room. Avoiding her, he made his way out of the house and went down the stairs. Cissie was on his mind. All afternoon he'd retained the image of her, a new and provocative one made so by Joey's tale. All afternoon his mind had woven fantasies of a new kind. And yet he didn't like Cissie herself, which was something he couldn't understand.

No one on the street; his friends had gone off somewhere but he didn't mind now. He was even glad that they weren't about. His mind was blank as he moved down the block, he didn't know where he was going. But he had to walk, the unease that afflicted him more acute.

He paused at the corner and looked toward the ice-cream parlor. About to pa.s.s it, he stopped and looked in. Someone had laughed.

It was Cissie and he saw her smiling at him; he had no doubt of that. Smiling in a way that made him s.h.i.+ver. He thought of Joey's words and the way he had laughed at him. Well, he'd show Joey, he thought, and he wanted to go to Cissie but didn't have the nerve.

Cissie herself made the move. She came out of the store moving languidly, pretending sophistication, a pretty girl with a keen face and eyes. Immediately, she sensed Six Fingers' shyness and smiled to herself.

"You're Six Fingers, aren't you?" she said, close to him now.

He nodded, regarding her with a puzzled frown. Close up, she was prettier, exciting, yet he didn't like her.

"How'd you know my name?" he finally asked.

"Joey told me. You're new around."

"That's right."

"How'd you get the funny nickname?"

As soon as he'd moved into the neighborhood his new companions, in the direct and unthinking cruelty of youth, had given him this name upon noticing his right hand with the extra finger. That hadn't bothered him at all. In fact, it was expected, for the name had followed him from the old neighborhood and he'd grown used to it. Besides, there was a certain distinction in possessing an extra finger.

But Cissie's question he resented. Nevertheless he showed her his hand. He expected her to be shocked but, instead, she appeared delighted.

"Oh, then it is true," she exclaimed. "I didn't believe Joey when he told me. He's such a liar, you know."

The last made Six Fingers wonder. Had Joey lied about her too?

"You doing anything?" Cissie asked.

He shook his head, studying her.

"Then do you want to go for a walk?"